Jim Crow

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the American South from 1890 to 1965, succeeding the "Black Codes". All public facilities in the former Confederate States of America were segregated under the "separate but equal" ideology, with African-Americans and whites being given separate bathrooms, water fountains, school buses, public transportation, restaurants, public schools, and other public facilities. African-Americans were subjected to economic, educational, and social disadvantages, and they were by no means "equal"; all of their facilities were in disrepair and were inferior to those used by whites. In the conservative Democratic Party administration of Woodrow Wilson, the US Army and federal workplaces were segregated, and he instituted racial discrimination in hiring by requiring for photo identification to be submitted by job applicants. In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education led to public schools being desegregated, and the Jim Crow laws were generally overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Desegregation would take years to achieve due to opposition from the reactionary Southern Democrats (and later, the conservative US Republican Party), but the liberal factions of the Democratic Party and Republican Party would enforcecivil rights.